BOSTON – Boston Celtics point guard Rajon Rondo can be whatever his team needs him to be.

Often lauded for his passing ability and lamented for his passive shooting nature, he proved again Sunday what he did last year in the playoffs: when needed, he can carry the Celtics.

The point guard scored 26 points and handed out seven assists to lead the Celtics (38-12) to a 91-80 victory over the Orlando Magic (32-20) in a rematch of last year’s Eastern Conference Finals at TD Bank Garden.

Paul Pierce scored 18 points, while Kevin Garnett added 16.

Center Dwight Howard led Orlando with 28.

The Rondo that showed up to work Sunday was more in line with the player who captivated the region with his play last spring during the playoffs.

With his teammates coming out cold in the first quarter, Rondo was the only Celtic to score over the first seven minutes and single-handedly kept Boston from being run off the court.

He turned it on again in the third quarter, pushing the Celtics toward victory by scoring 11 points as Boston carried a 70-61 lead into the fourth.

“Rondo took the third over,” Garnett said. “Rondo controlled the game, the tempo and we just fed off of that.”

It wasn’t really a result of Rondo doing anything different, outside of being a little more aggressive. Orlando challenged him to beat them and he did.

Orlando ran a defense where guard Jameer Nelson and forward Ryan Anderson rolled over to help whenever Garnett got the ball in the lane, leaving Rondo with a clear path to the hoop whenever they kicked it back to him.

To fully take advantage of this, coach Doc Rivers went to an open spread and told Rondo to get to the rim and allow his instincts to take over.

“I haven’t seen him this aggressive going to the hole, as far as finishing,” Pierce said. “Usually when he’s getting into the lane, he’s finding guys, being passive. He was a little more aggressive tonight and we needed that.”

The Celtics key on defense was a simple one: Three is more than two.

They were willing to allow Howard, who is averaging 22.3 points per game, to get his points in the paint, but they knew if Orlando, which leads the league with 9.5 three-pointers made per game, got hot behind the arc it was going to be a long night.

Howard got his points early, scoring 24 points in the first half, but he was limited to six in the second as Orlando finished 3-for-24 from beyond the arc.

“If [Howard] does that all night, it’s going to be a long night,” Rivers said. “I know three points is more than two points, I learned that early on. So whenever he scored, we just kept telling our guys, ‘it’s just a two.’”

The Celtics came out cold and scored only six points over the first seven minutes and shot an abysmal 28.6 percent in the first quarter.

But after a collision with Magic guard Gilbert Arenas sent guard Marquis Daniels to the hospital on a stretcher with a bruised spinal cord early in the second, the Celtics rallied.

After Daniels left the court, they outscored Orlando 17-10 to tie the game at 34-34, then went on a 10-1 run spanning the second and third quarters to go up 53-43.

“I think we fed off of it a little bit. It was kind of like, do this for [Daniels],” Pierce said. “That’s what I saw. I saw a lot of energy because I was on the bench at the time. I was watching. That’s what started the run.”

General manager Danny Ainge said Daniels regained motion in his extremities and is expected to miss at least a month